– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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NEW YORK — North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis gets texts almost daily from his precocious Big Apple-born-and-bred freshman and namesake.
“Coach Davis” is all it usually reads. Coach Davis admittedly now responds with a hint of sarcasm.
“Player Jackson.”
The messages are precursors to the freshman asking the coach and former Tar Heel great how to get better. Whatever those exchanges have included after the initial ice breaker, tonight’s breakout performance in the biggest of college basketball stages shows that messages are starting to get through.
The freshman Jackson and the graduate student RJ Davis made their homecoming a happy one after they combined for 41 points as the Tar Heels came back from a 16-point deficit to stun No. 18 UCLA 78-74 inside Madison Square Garden in Game 1 of the CBS Sports Classic. As has been a theme all season with the Heels, they dug themselves a big hole, only for them to make furious rallies to put them in a position to pull out remarkable victory.
As evidenced by its 6-5 record, many of those comebacks have been in vain. But, unlike most of those other games, Jackson played a prominent role in the resurgence, and his insertion into the rotation changed the flow of the game when Carolina’s four-guard offense finally posed issues for the bigger Bruins.
Davis’ three free throws in the final seconds helped seal the victory, one where the jubilant Tar Heels bounded and leaped their way into the tunnel in the din of a sold-out crowd that was mostly dressed in Carolina blue and felt more like the Dean Dome than any other place outside of Tobacco Road can feel.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Saturday afternoon’s game, with photos taken by North Carolina-based photographer William Anthony. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 26 pictures in total.
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